I was driving there for eight years... still alive Like many in those videos, surprisingly (no wonder the theme of the film is "Second Birthday")

But my colleague isn't. He was a Brit, a Johnston & Johnston manager, father of four young ones, and was killed on a sidewalk, while exiting the passenger side of a parked vehicle. You see, Russian drivers do not think twice of using sidewalks to bypass a traffic jam. You saw it in the video too, when a car used the shoulder to avoid a stopped car and hit the guy holding a child. Stopping the car on the road, even with flashing lights, was equally stupid, of course, but you have to understand the guy, it was muddy on the shoulder, and he did not want his car dirty inside

The irony of the story about my colleague is that he was, at that very moment, a part of an advanced driving course, organized by J&J and administered by British police driving instructors. The police instructor suffered a nervous breakdown and was on the next flight to London. I was in that car, undergoing the same training, the day before.

And none of you have traversed the streets of Rome or Mexico City...now there's terror in every wheeled imagination. Try it in a taxi for even more humor.

Rome's a pussycat. Try Barcelona straight off the ferry. You exit the port onto a roundabout that, at my last visit, must have had about five or six lanes going round it. You inevitably intend to head somewhere else, but unless you take the testicle-enlargement pills an hour before docking, you will spend the next day or so going in frantic circles until the gas runs out, at which time a fine and a tow-truck will get you the hell out of there.

I'm told that in Madrid, those people who can own two cars: one old relic for Madrid and another, newer one for going elsewhere.

Rome's a pussycat. Try Barcelona straight off the ferry. You exit the port onto a roundabout that, at my last visit, must have had about five or six lanes going round it. You inevitably intend to head somewhere else, but unless you take the testicle-enlargement pills an hour before docking, you will spend the next day or so going in frantic circles until the gas runs out, at which time a fine and a tow-truck will get you the hell out of there.

The worst place where I have driven is, by far, Jamaica.

I was in India, Thailand, China, Cambodia, Nepal,... have not driven there though, but found them not to be as scary as Jamaica because people tend to drive reasonnably slow in those places.

In Europe, I woulld rate Paris as the worst, again because people tend to drive very fast in complex urban environments... although Rome by night on Fridays is pretty fun as well. Barcelona seemed pretty layed back in comparison, but that was nearly 20 years ago.